"An alien threat has risen from beyond the abyss, a swarm so vast that it blots out the stars. This horror fights neither for power nor territory, but rather to feed a hunger so insatiable that it will eventually devour the entire galaxy."

— Inquisitor Lord Kryptman

In Warhammer 40,000, the Tyranids are an extragalactic swarm of aliens that doesn't just overrun worlds, but consumes everything on them right down to the bedrock, including the oceans and air. Tyranids are more of a virus than a species, as they instinctively scan the DNA of what they eat and apply useful evolutionary upgrades to their swarms, ensuring that they only grow more deadly with each victory. Everything they use, from ranged weapons to spaceships, are symbiotic organisms, to the extent that it can be hard to tell where a Tyranid "gun" ends and the creature carrying it begins.

Though the individual creatures in the Hive Fleets are little more than beasts, Tyranids are controlled via synapse creatures by the race's Hive Mind, which is extremely intelligent. While the classic Tyranid strategy is to overwhelm their foes with weight of numbers, the swarms have also been seen to ambush armored columns in narrow passages that turned tanks into helpless sitting targets, employ burrowing organisms to launch surprise attacks behind enemy lines, or use winged creatures to sow discord and confusion. Of particular note are the specialized Tyranids known as Genestealers. They implant their DNA in victims, turning their children into Genestealer/human hybrids who will eventually form a cult on their homeworld that undermines the planet's defenses while psychically summoning the swarm. Three Hive Fleets have been encountered thus far: Hive Fleet Behemoth nearly overran the Ultramarines' homeworld of Macragge and killed their entire 1st Company; Hive Fleet Kraken all but wiped out the Eldar of craftworld Iyanden; and Hive Fleet Leviathan is currently rampaging through an Ork empire, as well as threatening the Blood Angels' homeworld of Baal... and these are likely just the vanguard of more Tyranid swarms still en route to the galaxy. The optimistic take on the Tyranids is that they are moving on our galaxy after cleansing one or more other galaxies of life. The pessimistic take is that they are running from something worse.

The tabletop Tyranid army is a mix of swarms of highly-expendable critters able to swamp even Imperial Guard or Ork forces, backed up by lumbering monstrous creatures capable of tossing tanks around with their tusks or blowing up heads with psychic powers. They also contain units of specialist creatures able to infiltrate or move quickly in order to keep the enemy occupied in close combat while the rest of the army closes in, and the biomorph system allows units to be upgraded to deal with specific targets rather effectively. The Tyranids' two main weaknesses are comparatively few ranged units, as well as the reliance on a few synapse creatures to keep the swarm together. The latter is offset by the fact that the presence of said creatures makes the rest of the army fearless, and the former rarely comes into play as the standard Tyranid strategy is to roll over the enemy like a tsunami.

The Tyranids have been a part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe since the 1st Edition of the game and have received rules in every edition since. The Tyranids have made appearances in a number of spin-off games and computer games including the 1993 board game Doom of the Eldar that focused on their invasion of the Craftworld Iyanden. The Tyranids of Hive Fleet Kraken were also the antagonists in Games Workshop’s first ever worldwide campaign, the Battle for Ichar IV. The 8th Edition rules for the Tyranids can be found in June 2017's Index: Xenos 2.

Notable Tyranid tropes include:

open/close all folders

Hive Fleets

2-D Space: Averted with Hive Fleet Leviathan. The Imperium was perplexed by Tyranid attacks taking place far behind the "front line" at the galactic "east," until they realized that the Hive Fleet had flanked the galaxy and was attacking "upward" from "underneath" it.

Absurdly Sharp Claws: Any 'nid strain from the genestealer on up is fully capable of cutting through Powered Armor, and the larger monsters can open a tank like a sardine can.

Acid Pool: Digestion pools created and maintained by the Tyranids on invaded worlds. Tyranid organisms (especially ones which have been consuming the local environment) will throw themselves into the pools to be rendered down into biomass to be reabsorbed by the hive. Smaller digestion pools will eventually be drained by capillary tendrils through the ground to empty into a vast digestion ocean. This ocean will then have feeder tendrils dropped into it from hive ships from orbit, as a kind of temporary suction-based Space Elevator to finally absorb the biomass back into the fleet.

As part of their fluff, this is what makes the Tyranids so dangerous; they constantly mutate and evolve to counter any weapons or tactics brought to bear against them, as well as absorbing the genes of other lifeforms to increase their options. Prior editions hinted that every Tyranid lifeform encountered is an offshoot of one of the main races; Zoanthropes are born from Eldar, Biovores from Orks, the basic genestealer from humans, and Tyrant Guards from Space Marines.

However, this is also a weakness; in theory, a successfully strained Hive Fleet could be pushed so hard that they use up all of their harvested biomass faster than they can replenish it, and/or end up mutating into Master of None strains in their quest to become Jack-of-All-Trades. This is exemplified by Hive Fleet Gorgon, the only canonical Hive Fleet to focus on the Tau, so far. Because the Tau, unlike the Imperium, are constantly redefining and reinventing technology and tactics, Gorgon was pushed to extinction; unable to replenish its biomass as fast as it was depleted, and incapable of producing the larger, vital synapse creatures needed to control its smaller, more simple-minded spawn, the Tau were able to whittle it down. The surprise addition of an Imperial Fleet, and a hasty, reluctant treaty between humans and Tau, was the final nail in the coffin. Gorgon found itself torn between which race to evolve to counter and unable to focus, so it was torn apart and eliminated.

All Webbed Up: The result of the strangleweb bio-weapon, which sprays a viscous mucus-like substance over targets. Shortly after projection, the substance hardens into a solid resin while shrinking down and constricting. Fragile targets can be crushed by this, and the more a target struggles and moves, the more opportunity the web has to constrict around it.

Always Chaotic Evil: Or rather, Always Extremely Ravenous. While the Hive Mind of the Tyranids possess some obvious, albeit utterly alien, intelligence, there is no way of communicating with it, no way of dissuading it, and no reasoning with it. It is driven to violently consume biomass, and nothing can change that.

Apocalypse How: Every planet they conquer gets a Class 6, and unless some way is found to break the Hive Mind, the same will happen to the entire Milky Way galaxy.

Art Evolution: Compared the Tyranid models from 2nd Edition◊ with the ones from later editions◊. Earlier Tyranids had more biological variety too, until their redesign gave the race a more unified look, such as adding boney ridged crests on almost every head.

Attack Animal: The lesser Tyranid creatures qualify, having little independent intelligence and only minimal (though often brutal) instinct to guide them. However, they have "handlers" in the form of synapse creatures, which are both more individually intelligent and capable of interfacing with the Hive Mind at greater distances, giving psychic "commands" to the lesser creatures as long as they remain nearby.

Blade Below the Shoulder: Type 3 for some Tyranid melee units, which have their arms below the elbow replaced with long scythe-like talons, tapering down to a monomolecular edge like most of the blades in this setting. Note that older editions also had some units in which a bone-like blade was simply gripped in hand in the manner of a sword (and the Swarmlord special character still does this) but Art Evolution has merged most of these weapons into their wielder, putting them into this trope.

Big Bad: A serious contender for the setting as a whole, though it would be difficult to define the Hive Mind as a singular "Big Bad". That said, their race/species is absolutely bent on consuming all of the Milky Way galaxy, right down to the last scrap of biomass, regardless of whom if belongs to. The sheer size of the real invasion fleet (the three Hive Fleets that have already shown up are apparently just scouting parties) means every other faction would need to either unite to stop them, or call a cease fire to combat a mutual enemy, just to survive.

Blue and Orange Morality: While they are an immense menace to the galaxy at large, their motive is basically summed up as "we're hungry", which is hardly an evil impulse. They just don't seem to care at all about every other living organism in the galaxy. It's telling in a universe where Chaos has its hand in everything that the Tyranids managed to be immune to their whispers (likely because not even Tzeentch can understand them). Although it may just be that the Hive Mind is on a level with them.

Brain Food: Any Tyranid creature with lamprey-like feeder tendrils in place of a mouth will be likely to eat brains. Lictors in particular are known for doing this, as it allows them to sift though a consumed organism's memories for information. This is part of a Lictor's role as a vanguard organism, helping the Hive Fleet gain intelligence on what worlds would be good targets for consumption and what kind of defenses to expect.

Breath Weapon: Some critters can make bio-plasma attacks, vomiting up a blast of white-hot energy accompanied by a piercing screech.

Bullet Seed: A near-literal case with many of the more rapid-firing Living Weapons wielded by some Tyranid organisms. Except that the "seeds" are things like tiny beetles which bore into flesh, or little worms which secrete acid and melt themselves into a target.

In one literal case, the Tyrannofex has the Rupture Cannon which fires two rounds: a bloated tick... and a seed case. Fluff says the two react in a catastrophic fashion when their chemical fluids are mixed upon impact.

Another literal one is the Barbed Strangler/Stranglethorn Cannon. It fires a seed pod that sprouts into a mass of fleshy tentacles in an instant, strangling whatever is within its reach. It has immense strength, but poor armor penetration because stronger armor can simply shrug off its attempts.

Chest Blaster: An option for some offensive biomorphs. Tyranid models will occasionally mount flesh-hooks or devourers underneath some folds on their underside between their forelimbs.

Combat Tentacles: Ranging from lash whips and flesh hooks on the battlefield creatures to tentacles on spaceships for boarding actions.

Combat Pragmatist: Unsurprisingly, since the Hive Mind has no need, use or real understanding of something like fair fighting, no more than a hungry animal would. As long as the result is more biomass for the Tyranids, it will employ any means necessary.

One classic example of this was when the Avatar of Khaine attempted to challenge the Swarmlord synapse creature to a duel on Craftworld Iyanden. The Swarmlord promptly sicced a dozen Carnifexes on it, quickly overwhelming it.

Deadly Gas: Tyranid spore chimneys (rigid towers grown from the ground) spread microbial spores on the wind to take seed and grow into more Tyranic bio-forms. Some Tyranid units also have biomorphs that cause them to discharge neurotoxic gasses that are lethal to non-Tyranid lifeforms. Then there is the Venomthrope genus, which produces a deadly gas so thick and opaque it is hard to even make out its profile through it all.

Drop Pod: The mycetic spores or tyrannocytes are essentially Organic Technology versions of these concepts. Living creatures violently birthed from hive ships with other Tyranid organisms nesting inside them, they crash into planets and disgorge their living contents. Even then, they often have some further utility, such as bio-weapons to defend the area, or the ability to (slowly) move or burrow, sometimes spouting microbial spores onto the wind or becoming another womb for gestating more Tyranids.

Likewise Tyrant Guard, who are biological Stonewalls, have small brains for the same reason Carnifexes do: less vulnerability to careful shots. The fact that they always operate in close proximity to a synapse creature (a Hive Tyrant) means that they can benefit from its intelligence via Psychic Link, and thus do not need to be very smart.

Most Biotitans that lack synapse are this, as their sole intent was to cause as much carnage and destruction as possible. Giving them a smaller brain not only helps them survive otherwise fatal headshots, but also means that they have only one overriding purpose in life (and are oh so very easily pissed off).

Eating Optional: Most Tyranid organisms don't actually have a functioning digestive system, as they're bio-engineered killing machines and such a thing would take space and energy away from muscles, reinforced endo- and exoskeletons, weapon-biomorphs, etc. If they aren't killed by the enemy first, they will eventually starve to death. Many of them still have instinctive behaviour to feed, though, as it makes them attack the enemy even when not under control of the synapse creatures. The Ripper swarms are the most obvious example, as their whole purpose is to eat any biomass they come across in order to transport it to the reclamation pools to be digested and fed to the Tyranid hive ships. The one major exception is the Haruspex, which is specifically designed to eat everything in its path as part of the Hive Mind's strategy to consume as much biomass as possible.

Empathic Weapon: In a quite literal way. The Living Weapons employed by the smaller Tyranid genus types symbiotically bond with their wielder, melding their flesh together and growing spinal cord-like attachments to mesh their nervous systems together. In this way, the weapon itself acts as a sort of secondary "brain" for the creature, giving the limited intellect of its primary brain the knowledge and skill necessary to use the weapon. The Pyrovore takes this to an extreme; the weapon is sentient but the body is not. The Exocrine is essentially a big walking weapons platform for an organic artillery cannon.

Enemy Summoner: The Tervigon is a walking Termagaunt factory, birthing them directly from its belly to go into battle. In-game, every shooting phase the Tervigon produces 3D6 Termagaunts, only stopping if doubles are rolled.

Explosive Breeder: Larger organisms avert this, as they take a non-trivial amount of time to gestate and fully mature, especially the brain-heavy synapse creatures. However, the smaller and less neurologically complex Tyranids can breed extremely quickly, with the swarm able to reinforce its supply of lesser creatures in a matter of days, provided it has sufficient biomass.

The bio-forms based on the Tyrant Guard genus all characteristically lack eyes and other sense organs which might be a vulnerability. Since they are bred to always be close to other perceptive Tyranid creatures with whom they share a Psychic Link, this is not as big a disadvantage as it would seem.

Zoanthropes and Neurothropes also lack eyes, although in their case it's because they no longer have need for mundane things like sight for perceiving the world.

Hormagaunts are a Tyranid species meant to swamp the enemy in close combat, and to accomplish that they are bred to be very, very fast and agile. However, they are also quite frail, which is why the Tyranids send them in great numbers at once...

As Tyranids do not rely on conventional Grav-Tech to gain flight or have powerful engines, they instead have to resort to good ol' hollow bones and wings for their fliers. Thus, Gargoyles, Harpies and flying Warriors tend to have weaker armor than their ground-based counterparts, representing how fragile they can be. Tyrants subvert this somewhat, as they are able to project a psychic field around them that's just as durable as armor, making them Lightning Bruisers as a result.

Surprisingly averted with the massive Hierophant Biotitan. Its stalky legs and exposed bone structure look fragile, but the thing is shockingly fast and incredibly durable, enough that it can stand toe-to-toe with a Reaver Titan in combat.

Giant Flyer: Harridans, which are giant flying insect dragons in a nutshell.

Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Is this in both metaphorical sense and a literal sense to the universe at large; where every single faction (barring the Necrons and Tau) have their origins connected deeply to the Chaos Gods, it's telling that the horde of alien space locusts not only have no connection to them, but can actually cause the gods to piss themselves in terror through their collective mental chattering. While every other race run the risk of being attacked by Daemons when using psychic powers, Tyranids are completely immune to this (although the in-game mechanic remains unchanged, and is explained as a psychic feedback to the hive mind rather than a daemonic incursion).

Go Mad from the Revelation: Only one known character (Chief Librarian Tigurius of the Ultramarines) has actually made psychic contact with the Hive Mind and not been rendered utterly insane immediately, or outright died from the psychic shock. He described it only as "an immortal hunger", spread across and uniting quadrillions of beings.

Guilt-Free Extermination War: With every other race in the setting. The Imperium and Eldar just want to survive, Chaos has a bone to pick with the Imperium, the Tau want the Greater Good, and Orks just want to have fun. Tyranids just want to consume, and while there have been desperate alliances between the races, there's no negotiation with the 'Nids. Kill or be consumed. The game's alliance mechanics allow every other faction to form Alliances of Convenience with one other faction. Tyranids, in contrast, can't even form desperate alliances with anyone other than their Genestealer Cult minions. They're hated across the galaxy.

Healing Factor: Rapid regeneration was introduced by the unique Carnifex named "Old One Eye," and is now a standard upgrade for most Tyranid organisms.

The Hedge of Thorns: Weaponized with the Barbed Strangler and its larger Stranglethorn Cannon cousin. It launches a dense seed organism, and whatever it hits gets quickly devoured for mass as it shoots out thorny vines in all directions, ripping apart the target and lacerating and snaring all around it. After a brief period its life is expended and it falls dormant, with anything surviving the initial burst wrapped in hard, brittle, sharp vines.

Hive Drone: The bulk of the Tyranid forces consists of drones under the Hive Mind's control and with animal-level intelligence at best. Averted by synapse creatures, which receive a greater degree of independence in order to control sections of the swarm or operate behind enemy lines.

Hive Mind: This is the Tyranids' most dangerous aspect; the entire race, at least from the Norn Queens through the synapse creatures, have a shared mind that is incredibly intelligent and has enormous psychic power. Chief Librarian Tigurius of the Ultramarines is the only human pysker who has made contact with it and survived (everyone else died or went insane), and could only describe it as "an immortal hunger."

Hive Queen: Synapse creatures, though only the rarely seen Norn Queens are female. Probably.

Hollywood Tactics: Averted. They may 'look' like dumb animals, and use superior numbers, but the Hive Mind is a tactical and strategic super-genius.

Improbable Aiming Skills: The Hive Guard, a heavily armored feeder tendril guardian, wields an Impaler Cannon, a weapon which fires long spikes with membranous fletching at extreme velocity. The Hive Guard in fact has no eyes, but "sees" through other members of the swarm, allowing it far greater situational awareness than it would otherwise have. Further, the spikes themselves possess a rudimentary awareness, flexing their fletching membranes in flight to adjust their trajectory and further ensure a target is hit, even from extreme range and in bad conditions.

It Can Think: The larger "synapse" Tyranid creatures certainly can. However, these creatures take more time and biomass to develop than the smaller ones, and thus there tend to be fewer of them, while the others must make do with more animalistic intelligence. However, as long as smaller creatures remain near the bigger ones, they can benefit from its intelligence thanks to their Hive Mind.

Tyranids typically arrive on a planet's surface via "mycetic spores" dropped from space, especially the larger creatures which take more time to mature. Smaller ones are typically born "in the field" via the consumption of the local environment.

Tyranid Gargoyles are variations on the gaunt genus with wings to carry them aloft. Their role is to swoop down on enemies from above and keep them occupied while larger creatures move into position. When Gargoyles have to move long distances, they will accompany a larger, dragon-like flier called a Harridan, clinging to its underside to save on their own energy.

The Juggernaut: This is the function of the Carnifex unit. It acts as a line breaker, plodding forward implacably as attacks waste themselves against its exceptionally dense carapace, cutting down or bowling over anything that stands in its path like a living battering-ram.

Keystone Army: The synapse creatures are the ones with strong enough psychic reception to form a continuous connection to the Hive Mind, while all the lesser creatures have to make due acting on crude instinct or being directed by nearby synapse creatures. As a result, targeting the synapse creatures can cause a Tyranid army's higher level tactical direction to fall apart, turning them into simple (if savage) beasts to mop up. However, this only lasts until other synapse creatures replace the fallen ones. A force defending against Tyranids needs to know when to press its advantage and when to fall back and hunker down against their otherwise overwhelming numbers.

Large and in Charge: Larger Tyranid organisms are more likely to be the synapse creatures directing the swarm, leading to the Imperium's official policy on combating them: shoot the big ones.

Living Gasbag: Tyranid spore mines are these, with jellyfish-like tentacles hanging below them and thin but rigid series of small overlapping chitinous plates surrounding its float-bladder. The Tyranids launch them from the biovore species to float over the battlefield and find targets. They tend to end up hovering just above the ground and have limited locomotion, but when a non-Tyranid draws near them they explode, the sharp pieces of their shell scything out like shrapnel and spreading toxic spores and caustic fluid as they do so.

Master Swordsman: Hive Tyrants, of swords made out of razor-sharp-bone with a psychic brain at its base yes, but still swordsmen nevertheless. The Swarmlord cranks this up to absolutely ludicrous degrees, weilding four such swords at the same time, and so blindingly fast with them that a virtually impenetrable wall-of-blades is what your sword will clash into if you try to fight it hand-to-claw.

Mook Maker: Tyranid hive ships, for starters, making every smaller creature and even other hive ships themselves. Below that, Tyranids seed invaded worlds with brood nests, which consume the local resources brought to them and churn out smaller creatures on-site, allowing them to change their force composition in the field. Taking this one step further, some Tyranid creatures themselves are Mook Makers themselves, such as the Tervigon, which spawns Termagants from various womb-pustules on its belly while on the battlefield.

Mother of a Thousand Young: Hive Ships are storehouses of all the genetic information needed to spawn every other Tyranid organism. While they might birth a few directly themselves, more often they birth the seeds which land on a planet with a rich biosphere and in turn birth more creatures as they consume the local environment.

Multi-Armed and Dangerous: All the Tyranids are evolutions from a basic six-limbed shape, and most use all of them, except for some like the serpentine Raveners and the winged Gargoyle who have a pair of vestigial legs.

My Brain Is Big: Zoanthropes have always had huge heads, the better to channel psychic power. Models from earlier editions had torsos, arms, and legs, and would stand and walk on the ground. Art Evolution has pushed later models into being little besides a brain, with a long, snake-like body to house its brainstem. It now uses its psychic power to levitate over the battlefield, rather than walk.

Named After Their Planet: Since the Hive Fleets' true origin is a mystery, they are named after Tyran, the first Imperial world that they made contact with.

Not for nothing were the Tyranids nicknamed "the Great Devourer". Whole planets are left as completely lifeless rocks, stripped of any and all biomass and minerals that could be useful.

The Swarmlord, Hive Tyrant, Tyrant Guard, Red Terror, Broodlord, Old One Eye, Death Leaper and the infamous Carnifex all get a special mention. Even names that don't have obvious meanings, like the Trygon, sound ominous.

Offscreen Teleportation: They are never actually witnessed using any kind of faster-than-light travel and there's no evidence they have any, but their fleets move between stars as fast as everyone else's.

Only Known by Their Nickname: This applies to the few special characters the Tyranids have (see below), because they don't have names or identities as humans do.

Organic Technology: It's interesting looking back over the model range to see how what once were distinct weapons became fused to their wielders.

Outside-Context Problem: Arguably one for the setting, even more so than Chaos. They're an extra-galactic threat, having already consumed other galaxies and now they want ours. They're also the only faction that is truly united: countless trillions of organisms all devoted to infiltration, consumption, evolution, and migration. Power, glory, the favors of gods... absolutely meaningless to them. The Tyranids seek only to devour, and once they're done, they'll move on without even looking back.

Proportionately Ponderous Parasites: Larger Tyranid organisms will often have smaller organisms attach to (or birthed by) them, detaching to engage targets. The smallest of these are the Abnormal Ammo in the Living Weapons wielded by other Tyranid creatures; the largest are other hive creatures which live aboard their Living Ships. In between, you have things like Gargoyles clinging to Harridans for long flights, or other creatures which live on bio-titans.

Power Floats: Zoanthropes do not even have legs, they just hover along via psychic levitation.

Psychic Static: One of the most dangerous aspects of the Tyranids is how the Hive Mind casts a "shadow in the Warp" ahead of it, which is strong enough to overwhelm any psykers on a planet targeted by the Hive Fleets. This is very bad news, since psykers are required for astropathic communication and navigation, which means when the 'nids are on their way, there's no chance of sending a call for help, and no way for it to arrive. Some Imperial scholars believe that the cause of this is the absolutely massive amount of psychic "bandwidth" that the Hive Mind requires, simply drowning out all other psychic voices in the area. It's described as a million voices all chattering in unison.

Puppeteer Parasite: The Cortex Leech, a little-known ripper genus. It's a small, fast-moving creature which leaps up to a victim's face, then extends flexible antenna into the victim's mouth, nose, ears, and eyes. These feelers burrow into the brain, and turn the victim into a drooling puppet of the Hive Mind.

Hive Tyrants are unique in that they have distinct consciousnesses and personalities, which help them be more effective "generals." As part of the Hive Mind they can never be killed, meaning that if you destroy a Hive Tyrant in one battle, the next time you meet he'll remember your tricks, and he'll be pissed. The Swarmlord is believed to have involved in every major Tyranid conquest in their history in this way.

The Swarmlord is a special character when compared to the other Hive Tyrants in the fact it is uniquely separate from the Hive Mind. Think of it as a very dangerous second opinion brought in only when the Hive Mind's usual strategiesnote 'strategies' and not tactics, as the Tyranids constantly mutate and experiment to ensure tactical efficiency do not work on the foe it is currently fighting. What makes it unique is that while there are many Hive Tyrants, it's implied that there is only one Swarmlord at any given time, having its consciousness beamed across star systems on an as-needed basis. It's the sole Hive Tyrant that is not bound to any one hive fleet or ship.

Rent-a-Zilla: Tyranid bio-titans, giant beasts which stay mobile via the hivemind's psychic strength both lifting them and protecting them with warp-shields.

Sand Worm: The Tyranids have something close in the Mawloc, a worm-like Tyranid with six powerful burrowing limbs alongside a long, chitin-plated serpentine body ending in a wicked earwig-like tail. Much like the classic trope inspiration, they are almost entirely blind and rely on sensation of vibration through the ground. Even a person standing stock still can be detected by a Mawloc, if their terrified heart is beating loud enough...

You can talk all you want about strategy and unit choice, but when it comes down to it, all Tyranid tactics end up as "spiky death".

Spike Shooter: Stinger Salvos, Cluster Spines, Impaler Cannons...the Tyranids are not short of variations on these.

Star Scraper: Capillary towers are an organic version of these. As the ecological transformation of a Tyranid invasion begins to reach a "critical" stage, these begin to grow out of the accumulated biomass and rich minerals that the invasion has been rendering down into digestion oceans. They gradually grow to a height of several kilometers, and act as anchor points for hive ships, who extend feeding tendrils down to latch onto them and draw up the rendered biomass through them, like drinking up the biosphere through a giant straw.

Super Prototype: The Tyranids' "Characters" in general are this rather than true individual characters, but it's entirely literal in the Doom of Malan'tai. The "mass-production" unit derived from its template (the Neurothrope) isn't quite as powerful as the prototype.

Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The Tyrannocyte, introduced in 2015, is nearly identical to the older Mycetic Spore, a unit introduced in the 5th Edition Tyranid codex but were later removed in the 6th Edition codex in 2014.

Suspiciously Stealthy Predator: Lictors are the Tyranid's primary scouting units. They are able to stay perfectly still for days at a time, capable of changing their color to perfectly blend with the surrounding, and can alter their own body temperature to match the ambient level so as not to show up on infrared. Further, because they feed on the Brain Food of individuals in the area they are operating and gain some of that creature's knowledge by doing so, they know what things like security systems are and possibly where they are likely to be located as well. All this combines to make them creatures that are very hard to find if they do not wish to be found, and easily able to slip past even alert defenses.

The Swarm: The "ripper" genus is a family of many kinds of small Tyranid organisms which primarily exist to gather biomass for the swarm. They are weak and possess little offensive ability on their own, so they are typically only deployed after resistance has been cleared out to consume passive prey. Their quick-breeding allows them to multiply in numbers such that they form a rolling "wave" of living creatures that leave only desolation in their wake. A defender should hope that they were killed by one of the larger creatures as opposed to simply wounded by the time the rippers get to their body...

Tentacle Rope: Tyranid flesh-hooks are a variation of these, except instead of lashing around a foe, they dig a boney meat-hook into them. They also function as a Grappling Hook Launcher for scaling obstructions.

Many Tyranids are named after relatively obscure words for unpleasant and domineering women: harridan, termagant (and its older form, Tervigant, when it referred to a pagan god that medieval Christians believed Muslims worshiped), harpy, and dominatrix, though many of these are also puns or references—termagants were a type of ground unit from the 1970s Metagaming game Chitin: 1 The Harvest Wars, and harpies are, of course, a type of mythological flying beast.

The Hive Fleets, for the most part, have been named after mythological beasts and monsters. The three most major Hive Fleets to date have been Behemoth, Kraken, and Leviathan, and smaller Hive Fleets have included Jormungandr, Medusa, Scylla, and Tiamet. There are even two with literary names: Dagon and Grendel.

Too Many Mouths: The Hive Mind thought it was a good idea to warp the Dimachaeron's thorax into a gigantic maw.

The Tyranid Ravener is a slithering creature capable of tunneling under the surface to bypass static defenses and literally undermine entrenched positions. For high value and seriously hardened targets, groups of Raveners will often be lead by a Trygon, their far-larger cousin.

Now with even greater emphasis on tunneling comes the Mawloc. These things are like Graboids turned Up to Eleven.

Terraform: The effect Tyranids have on planets they invade, pre-consumption, involves some rather unpleasant alterations to the existing biosphere. This serves to "tenderize" the planet, making the biomass easier to process and consume when the hive fleet moves in after the defenses have been neutralized.

Tyranid swords and other close combat weapons are made from hardened bone that is tougher than steel.

In older editions, larger tyranids (most notably Carnifexes) could have bonded exoskeletons, where the gaps between non-moving bones filled up with more of the same substance. The most notable area is the ribcage, where instead of a cage of bones, it turns into basically a sub-dermal shell. In-game this had the effect of raising the creature's toughness. Another upgrade, Extended Exoskeleton, works in a similar way but instead grows larger chitin plates on the creature's back, covering more vital areas and granting a higher Armor Save. Needless to say, both options were very popular until they got removed.

The Virus: Or more precisely, The Bacterial Microbe. Several of the initial Mycetic Spores launched during a Tyranid invasion release these microbes around their point of impact. The microbes potentially infect nearby lifeforms, causing mutation, death, and rapid decomposition. This in turn grows into colonies of brood nests to birth more Tyranids, and jutting spore chimneys which spout more of these microbes into the air to let the wind carry them elsewhere. Eventually, all native life is choked out by this process and the world becomes a wasteland of digestive pools and vein-like bio-mass capillaries.

Weaponized Offspring: When other Tyranic attacking forces have been devastated, Rippers have been observed to burrow into the ground and undergo spontaneous metamorphosis into a wide variety of other Tyranid genus. This leads some Imperial scholars to speculate that the Rippers are in fact an immature or larval form of Tyranid.

We Have Reserves: ... that outnumber the stars. Graphical representations of the hive fleets portray the overall force as being roughly as large as the Milky Way itself.

You Are Who You Eat: The Tyranid can make use of the genetic code of the worlds they consume. For instance, the Zoanthrope "Doom of Malan'tai" got its name and extra psychic power from eating a bunch of Eldar souls.

Zerg Rush: The most basic Tyranid battle plan is to overwhelm the enemy with floods of small fighting creatures like Termagants and Hormagaunts.

Genestealers

Genestealers (behind) with a Genestealer Cult (foreground).

Vanguard organisms of the Hive Fleets, Genestealers are deployed well ahead of the fleet's advance to undermine potential prey worlds. Once a Genestealer arrives on a world, it will introduce its genetic material into portions of the populace. This drives them to breed and spread the infection, creating a cult of hybrids that slowly but surely undermines the world's social structure, military, and government while creating a psychic beacon that draws a Hive Fleet to the world to harvest its biomass.

Because of this mission, Genestealers are bred to be much more independent than the Hive Fleets, a Genestealer brood being almost a separate hive intelligence unto itself. Capable of hibernating in wait for centuries, Genestealers were likely by far the first Tyranid organisms in our galaxy, their numbers maintained and expanded via their parasitic preying on other species for reproduction. With great strength packed into a compact body and claws capable of rending through even the toughest armor, Genestealers are deadly whether they are acting subtle or overt.

Genestealers were have been a part of Warhammer 40,000 since the 1st Edition of the game, where they were an alien race originally unrelated to the Tyranids, and have appeared in a number of spin-off games such as Space Hulk and Advanced Space Crusade. Later lore made Genestealers a vanguard organism of the Tyranid Hive Fleets and they have been inseparable from the forces of the Great Devourer ever since. Genestealer Cults were initially introduced in Space Hulk before being introduced to the 1st Edition of Warhammer 40,000. The Genestealer Cults were included as an appendix army list in the 2nd Edition Codex: Tyranids but, although they received a few unofficial and fan made army lists, they were relegated to a background-only faction until February 2016’s board game Deathwatch: Overkill saw them face off against the alien hunters of the Deathwatch. The Genestealer Cults were reintroduced into the core Warhammer 40,000 game in October 2016 with the release of their first codex sourcebook and a full range of models. The rules for using Genestealer Cults in the 8th Edition of Warhammer 40,000 are included in the Index: Xenos 2 book released in June 2017.

Absurdly Sharp Claws: Genestealer claws are Absurdly Sharp, even by the standards of the setting, and the muscles on their limbs are much more powerful than they look. Stories abound about Genestealers able to rip open the armor of a Space Marine Terminator like it was a tin can (though in practice the Genestealer can only do that if it gets a really lucky grip on the victim.)

The Ageless: Genestealer Patriarchs are known to live for hundreds of years, and unless killed, are practically immortal.

Art Evolution: When originally introduced, the Genestealer Patriarch looked like a big fat bastard sitting on his chair. With the revamped and revived Genestealer Cults in 2016, it now looks like a regular old Genestealer, albeit bigger and more robust.

Assimilation Plot: The modus operandi of a Genestealer cult, though downplayed to the extent that they do not necessarily want to get everyone in. The early stages of a Genestealer population infiltration will have the brood lurk around the outskirts of society, careful to avoid detection and "kissing" a few lone individuals who will not be missed. As the cult adds new generations and grows in size, they will start fronts to allow them more freedom of movement and resources, becoming more selective as they go about who they bring into the "family" to groom themselves for more influence and avoid discovery. Eventually as a Hive Fleet approaches, they are driven to be more aggressive and will try to stage a coup, which may or may not be successful, but either way will divert attention and resources away from the oncoming threat.

Awesome Personnel Carrier: For what counts as a civilian vehicle, the Goliath Truck is packed with firepower and can tag along several Genestealer Cult members. It is like a beefed up Ork Trukk for just less than double the points, but with more armour and bigger guns.

Breeding Cult: The goal of Genestealer cults being to propagate more Genestealers in secret, gathering higher influence to better hide their growing numbers.

The Bus Came Back: Genestealer cultists, introduced during the earliest days of the game, were removed as playable units in 4th edition. In February 2016 they were re-released as part of the board game Deathwatch: Overkill, with an accompanying dataslate containing rules for the very specific Ghosar Quintus cult featured in the board game. The release of Codex: Genestealer Cults brought them back in full.

Car Fu: The Goliath Rockgrinder, a Goliath Truck with a Drilldozer Blade shoved up front, is designed to ram other vehicles into oblivion and hopefully turn enemy infantry into meaty chunks.

Co-Dragons: In a Genestealer Cult, if the Magus is the chief psyker and manipulator of a Patriarch then the Primus is the Patriarch's warmaster and chief lieutenant. While the Magus' role is to corrupt, the Primus serves to lead the cult into war.

Cult: When Genestealers infiltrate a population, they will go underground and look for isolated victims to "kiss". These individuals will reproduce Genestealer Hybrids and love them like their own. In order to maintain their "family" they will often find some kind of front or cover story to keep the nature of their children concealed. Such will usually adopt certain aspects of the host culture, twisting it around to center about the Genestealers, creating a secretive sect devoted to spreading their seed.

Destined Bystander: The Genestealers were introduced early into the setting as a small piece of background lore. Once the Tyranids arrived, their role in the narrative was greatly expanded as being early elements of the Hive Fleet seeded into our galaxy. This was most likely a Revision, which involved a few minor Retcons which relegated the original Genestealer conception with a minor offshoot of the race as a whole.

Dumb Muscle: Genestealer Aberrants are massively muscled creatures capable of wielding heavy weaponry with ease. Though dim-witted, their instinctive need to defend their brood makes them valuable assets to the cult.

Ghost Ship: The Hive Fleets are fond of leaving first generation Genestealer broods on space hulks, where they will go dormant and wait. Eventually the space hulk will arrive in a populated system, or it will be investigated by explorers, and there the brood will find their hosts...

Hive Mind: Like the Hive Fleets, the Genestealers have a hive mind. This mind is generally independent of the Hive Fleet, and is specific to particular broods, which is necessary considering that they often operate far from any other Tyranid organism and thus need to better think for themselves. However, when the Hive Fleets are inevitably drawn to a location where Genestealers have been reproducing successfully, those Genestealers will begin to become affected by the Hive Mind of the fleet, and will be spurred into more overt and aggressive action against their host populations. By the time the Hive Fleet arrives, the Genestealer brood will have been mentally re-absorbed into the Hive Mind of the fleet and function as their elite shock troops when overcoming its defense.

Improvised Weapon: A few of the Genestealer Cults' weapons, including the Goliath Truck, are originally mining equipment appropriated for use in the battlefield.

Lotus-Eater Machine: Genestealer Cultists, tragically, are not actually aware the Tyranids view them as useful but temporary tools that will be eaten once they have sabotaged their world's defenses. To them, they're the servants of an enlightened and angelic race that will bring salvation to the universe, and see all the Genestealer traits as angelic features. This lasts until the Hive Mind re-assimilates the Patriarch and Purii, at which point it is no longer efficient and the Cultists have just enough time to scream.

Magic Knight: The Genestealer Patriarch, a ML1 Psyker with access to Biomancy, Telepathy and Broodmind, also enjoys ripping out 4 S6 attacks with Rending, Shred, and AP3, and can buy familiars to add even more S4 attacks to the pile. His combination of psychic powers, beastly stats and access to Invisibility means he can go toe to toe with most characters.

Mix-and-Match Critters: Genestealer hybrids, particularly first-generation ones, will mix an equal amount of characteristics from the genestealer and the host species. Later generations will downplay the Genestealer traits further with each generation, until around the fifth or sixth generation purestrain Genestealers are born to them.

The Mole: Genestealer cults fill this role on a strategic level for the Tyranid Hive Fleets.

Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: Half any-sentient-species hybrid. Genestealers have a curious reproductive cycle, where only a few early broods are birthed directly by the Hive Fleets, and all later members of the brood are born to host species that the Genestealers prey on. After infecting a host organism, that organism will be driven to reproduce, but any such offspring will be half the host species and half Genestealer. Naturally, such a creature is usually very misshapen as it combines traits of both species freely. However, later generations of hybrids will look progressively more like the host species, until by about the fifth or six generation they are completely indistinguishable from them. The children of that generation will then be more "pure" Genestealers and the cycle begins again.

Our Vampires Are Different: The first recorded contact with Genestealers came from the moons of the planet Ymgarl. Originally though to be native to there, it was only later revealed that they were a specific mutation of the wider Genestealer species and a vanguard of the Tyranids. Instead of the maw found on other Genestealers, they have lamprey-like feeder tendrils that they use to drain blood of victims. They are able to conceal themselves with limited shape-shifting abilities, but this requires them to feed often to maintain. Though their shape shifting is powerful, the Hive Fleets display no desire to re-absorb them, leading to speculation that the mutation might be unstable if assimilated back into the hive.

Invoked by the Genestealers. Their infiltration of planets has the primary effect of destabilizing them militarily from within so they cannot effectively mount a defense, but secondarily by making it difficult for the planetary authorities to conclusively determine which individuals have been subverted by the Genestealers or not, continuing to make it difficult to mount a unified defense as the population and chain of command falls into a pattern of distrust and fear.

Their 2016 playstyle invokes this, with many units having the ability to drop back into Ongoing Reserves and using the "Cult Ambush" rules to appear literally anywhere on a good dice roll. With many of them being armed with demo charges or incredibly powerful short ranged weapons, spamming this ability can induce the same paranoia in your opponent. In addition their Broodmind Psychic Discipline is also focused on playing mindgames with the enemy, from weakening the opponent to outright taking control of them (one of the powers is literally "Mind Control").

The Patriarch: The actual title of the first Genestealer to found a brood among a host species. As the brood of hybrids grow, the Patriarch will slowly grow progressively larger and more physically powerful. By the time the forth generation of hybrids comes about and new Genestealers are being born, the Patriarch will be a massive beast. As every member of the brood is psychically connected with the Patriarch, the more the brood grows in number the more the Patriarch's psychic potential grows to accommodate them, eventually becoming a fantastically powerful psyker in its own right.

Portent of Doom: If a Genestealer cult has grown to the point of open insurrection, a Hive Fleet is not far away...

Power Creep, Power Seep: Possibly moreso than any other specific example in 40K, the power of a Broodlord as a psyker. In the fluff he's a supernatural powerhouse rivaling even the best Space Marine Librarians, as strong in the ways of the Warp as he is with his claws and muscles. On the tabletop he's one of the weakest psykers available to any faction (level one, with only one actual power he can use).

Puppeteer Parasite: The "Genestealer's Kiss" initially causes confusion and amnesia in the host organism, which renders them placid and can take several hours to resolve fully. However, after that time it brings the host under the thrall of the Genestealer brood, altering their hormones and perceptions so that they come to love the Genestealers and any children they have by them. Some puppets may not even realize that they are being influenced by an external intelligence.

The Ymgarl Genestealers became a "special character unit" in 5th edition's codex, but were removed in the 6th edition codex.

The introduction of the Broodlord in 4th edition was supposed to make all-Genestealer armies a possibility. 5th edition instead made Broodlords into unit sergeants, once again making you unable to field pure-Genestealer armies. 6th and 7th edition has flipflopped on this, retaining the Broodlord as a unit commander but also releasing several independent formations that can be composed entirely of Genestealers, making it possible to field legal armies of them again (with the release of Shield of Baal, there is now a Genestealer that can take a Warlord trait, coming full circle again).

Rogue Drone: Somewhat downplayed, but not all Genestealers are as willing as other Tyranid morphs to be recycled into bio-matter, and many will flee infected planets just before the hive fleet arrives. In an odd twist, Ymgarl Genestealers are forced to be this against their will — their shapeshifting abilities are too unstable for the Hive Mind to want them back in its gene pool, so they are abandoned after their use is over. Despite this, they still want to rejoin the Hive Mind, so they keep rejoining the swarms, just to always be ejected later.

Presumably, this is what's happening if the Patriarch fights against the Tyranids-he is, after all, a pure Genestealer himself, so by all rights he should just be letting himself be recycled after eating his share of biomass. If he's fighting to defend his cult, then something has gone very wrong for the Hive Fleet.

Sigil Spam: An early sign of a Cult is the distinct Tyranid "wyrm", a curled representation of a limbless Tyranid bioform that resembles an Ouroboros. Inquisitors are thankful that all Cults seem to have it as a sacred symbol, and they emblazon it on everything they own.

Suspiciously Stealthy Predator: Because Genestealers are actually as intelligent as most sentient species, and are psychically connected both to each other and to the members of the host species they prey on, they tend to have a pretty good idea of the technological means by which others might identify or track their presence. Since they exist to infiltrate and spread as widely as possible before they are detected, they tend to be very good at this.

Unwitting Pawn: Even if they don't know it, after their planet comes to the Hive Fleet's notice, the destiny of a Genestealer Cult is sealed, because all surviving members will become food like the rest of the planet.

Although one would argue that a Hive Mind race like the Tyranids shouldn't have special characters — indeed, on a meta-level, this argument resulted in their lacking any in their fourth edition codex — the Tyranids have always had unique units, beginning with the Red Terror and Old One Eye in third edition, then adding more in their fifth and sixth edition codexes.

The Red Terror

A blood-red Ravener-like monster that was responsible for terrorizing the Imperial miners of Devlan Prime for 20 days and nights, burrowing through the solid rockcrete with its six curving blade-limbs and devouring victims whole before vanishing once more. The Imperium has no idea what happened to it after that sighting.

The Bus Came Back: The Red Terror was restored as a playable character in the 6th edition codex.

Legacy Character: On a meta-level. Raveners gained their ability to Deep Strike — flavored in-game as them burrowing up from below to attack their foes — and Trygons and Mawlocs gained their existence from this creature, who was originally the only one who could do it. Perhaps in homage, his entry in the 2014 codex notes that some Imperial scholars have suggested that the Red Terror may actually have been the first ever documented sighting of a Trygon and/or Mawloc.

Paranoia Fuel: In-Universe. What was the Red Terror? And what happened to it after Devlan Prime? Was it destroyed? Was it reassimilated and used to churn out the Trygons and/or Mawlocs? Or is it still out there, killing, and the Imperium doesn't know about it because nobody else has ever survived an encounter with it?

Put on a Bus: The Red Terror was removed as a playable model in the 4th edition codex, under the logic that a Hive Mind race shouldn't have special characters.

Swallowed Whole: Has the ability to do this, both in the background text and on the tabletop.

Old One Eye

A monstrous Carnifex that spearheaded the Tyranid assault on Calth, with the aid of its at-the-time unique healing abilities and bioweapons, only to be brought down by some brave Imperial hero, who seemingly killed it with a direct hit from a plasma pistol to the eye. Decades later, a band of smugglers found its frozen corpse and dug it out, hoping to sell it and be rich, only for the Carnifex to regenerate its wounds and resume to stalking the battlefields, somehow escaping Calth to bring death to the rest of the galaxy.

Ax-Crazy: Even by Carnifex standards, Old One Eye is a frothing mad berserker.

Art Evolution: Old One Eye had its own variant of the 3rd edition "Grinfex" model, complete with unique body, arm and leg sculpts (in fact the only piece it shared with the stock Carnifex was the scything talons). This held through 5th edition, but 6th edition instead redesignated the current Carnifex kit as Old One Eye. This is notable because the kit was never designed to be Old One Eye in the first place, but had a head that represented him perfectly (a standard Carnifex head missing a portion of its face, revealing the skull). This change was because Old One Eye's original model no longer looked like the current Carnifex, and because GW has been phasing out older resin/metal kits and the current plastic kit was a dead ringer for him anyways.

The Bus Came Back: It was restored as a playable character in the 5th edition codex and has been playable since.

Healing Factor: Infamous for it, In-Universe. In the third edition codex, it was the only Tyranid that could regenerate, whilst when it reappeared in the fifth edition codex, it had a version that worked more effectively than those of other Tyranids with the Regeneration biomorph, though it lost this in the 2014 codex.

Legacy Character: On a meta-level. Old One Eye's ability to regenerate and its unique crab-like crushing claws became standardly available biomorphs in all subsequent editions.

Put on a Bus: Old One Eye was removed as a playable model in the 4th edition codex, under the logic that a Hive Mind race shouldn't have special characters.

Wound That Will Not Heal: The empty eye-socket and exposed skull-patch from its first "death" is seemingly the only thing it can't regenerate.

The Swarmlord

The closest thing that the Swarm has to a true face, the Swarmlord is an ancient and incredibly powerful Hive Tyrant that is brought into being whenever the Hive Mind requires a greater level of tactical wealth and raw leadership than an ordinary Hive Tyrant can provide. If the Swarmlord dies, it is simply reincarnated again, and in this way it can be summoned to the aid of any hivefleet that ever needs its aid.

Badass Grandpa: The Swarmlord is the oldest known living entity in the hive fleets, being implied to have been fighting since at least the last galaxy the Tyranids fought against.

Cool Sword: Four unique serrated blades of organic bone/chitin sculpted around living crystals from outside of our galaxy.

Hive Queen: Zigzagged. It does have a greater level of individuality than any normal Tyranid, and it is created when the Tyranids need more direct control, knowledge and purpose than the Hive Mind can give. However, it is still merely an aspect of the Hive Mind, not the actual leader of the Tyranid race, and so killing it does nothing more than killing any other synapse creature.

The Leader: Or at least, the closest to the concept that we can understand.

Magic Knight: A powerful psyker and also very capable of curbstomping just about anything that gets into melee with it.

Never Found the Body: After the destruction of Hive Fleet Behemoth at the Battle of Macragge, the Swarmlord's body was never located. It's appeared on several battlefields afterwards, but it's unknown if it was killed and reincarnated, or simply managed to escape.

Resurrective Immortality: The Swarmlord can be killed, but its mind is just absorbed back into the Hive Mind, which can then recreate it whenever and wherever it is needed.

The Doom of Malan'tai

The Doom was a mutant Zoanthrope who was instrumental in the destruction of the Eldar Craftworld Malan'tai, by sneaking into the Infinity Circuit and devouring the spirits of the deceased Eldar trapped within. Its fate after that battle is unknown.

Degraded Boss: After the Doom of Malan'tai was removed from the 6th edition Tyranid codex, in November 2014 it was replaced by the Neurothrope, its 'uncountable progeny', which is a generic squad leader for Zoanthropes.

Demoted to Extra: Although no longer a playable model, the Doom has an entry in the Zoanthrope info page in the 6th edition codex.

Life Drain: In the fluff, the Doom did this to the souls in Malan'tai's Infinity Circuit. In-game, the Doom did this through its Spirit Leech rule, which was known to wipe out entire squads to give the Doom a ton of health back. The Neurothrope has a less-potent version of this ability.

Legacy Character: Much like Old One Eye and the Carnifex, it has been removed from the current edition and its ability instead appears on the Neurothrope upgrade for the Zoanthropes.

Put on a Bus: For legal reasons, the Doom was removed as a playable model in the 6th edition codex.

Your Soul Is Mine: Invoked in spirit, if not in word, by the Doom's assault on Malan'tai.

Deathleaper

A unique Lictor, created as the ultimate assassin and psychological weapon, infamous for its skill at terrorizing important targets and disrupting enemy morale.

Chameleon Camouflage: And he's so good at it that if you try and shoot him, your Ballistic Skill automatically drops to 1.

The Parasite of Mortrex

A grotesque flying abomination first seen on Mortrex, an Imperial fortress-world in the Ultima Segmentum, the Parasite earned its name and its legendary reputation for its ability to implant Ripper eggs into its victims, causing them to be devoured from the inside out by rapidly-hatching swarms. Within two weeks of its appearance, it had overrun the entire planet with vast tides of ravenous Ripper Swarms. It has not been seen since, but the Imperial Guard are certain it's out there, somewhere...

Demoted to Extra: Although no longer a playable model, the Parasite has an entry in the 6th edition codex.

Mook Maker: Those killed by its Implant attack create new bases of Ripper Swarms.

Put on a Bus: For legal reasons, the Parasite was removed as a playable model in the 6th edition codex.

Zoats

A little known and largely forgotten piece of early Tyranid lore, the Zoats were a centaur-like slave race engineered by the Tyranids. In first edition days, nearly half a Tyranid force had to be made out of Zoats. They were never popular, and never made the transition to the next edition, only having a few references to them be dropped in the background of the third edition. Much like the Squats, they are something considered to have been dropped from the franchise.

Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Quietly dropped when the second edition was released. Details about their removal went unremarked until a footnote in the third edition explained their fate: being consumed by the Hive Fleets as they have outlived their usefulness.

Though they haven't been brought Back from the Dead, many fans think that the design of the Tyranid Hive Guard was a bit of a nod to the Zoats.

Hive Fleet Colossus, given a few references in various rulebooks, is described as having centaur-like organisms, conch-like hiveships, painfully grafted symbiotic weapon organisms, technological weaponry absorbed and incorporated from other races it has overrun, and the ability to telepathically community with each other and with other races. Though not explicitly called Zoats, the description fits, and Games Workshop's own (old) conversion guide makes it pretty clear that is what they represent.

Dropped a Bridge on Him: The revamped lore indicated that the Tyranids created them as a semi-independent group to go ahead of the Hive Fleets as vanguards and disrupt targets for consumption. But being independent, they Turned Against Their Masters. However, finding themselves trapped between a rock and a Hive Fleet, they were quickly wiped out as the Hive Fleets caught up to them. The few who survived were spotted in Tyranid swarms, but their numbers dwindled as the Hive Fleets evolved to no longer need them.

Gas Mask Mooks: Zoats could only breath in very specific atmospheric conditions, and thus when not in a controlled environment like their ships they would each wear rebreathers.

Mouth of Sauron: The Zoats were to be harbingers of the Hive Fleet, letting others know that the Tyranids were coming for them, encouraging prey planets to surrender to the inevitable. This did not last long.

Organic Technology: They used much of it, though to a less animated extent than the Hive Fleets. For example, their ships were organic, but not Living Ships, having their hull grown like a shell, then hollowed out and having more conventional technology built into it. Their ability to freely combine both organic technology and conventional technology allowed the Tyranid forces to employ things like bolters and missile launchers, in addition to their more usual fare.

We cannot live through this. Mankind cannot live through this. In a single day they have covered the surface of this planet with a flood of living blades and needle-fanged mouths. Kill one and ten take its place. If they are truly without number then our race is doomed to a violent death before every shred of our civilization is scoured away by a force more voracious than the fires of hell themselves! Death! By the Machine God, Death is here!

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy